Genesis Capsule Crashes

[Billfred]

Alright, so the parachute was a failure. Nobody's contesting that. (If I read correctly, they had two Hollywood stunt helicopter pilots in the area ready to snag the probe in mid-air, which really puts my doubts on the parachute anyway.)

However, let's not count our lost chickens before they're hatched. If they can recover even a part of the atoms collected, then we're getting somewhere. Just cross your fingers, hold your breath, and hope they release more news before you pass out from a lack of oxygen.

[Marc P.]

I've been following this mission for a little over a month now, and from what I gather, the probe was supposed to begin rotating to stabilize it's entry, pop it's parachute once a certain amount of acceleration was experienced, then get snatched up by the helicoptors (they were actually the main tool for recovery, not just an emergency plan, though they were piloted by stunt pilots who trained for 5 years just on this mission).

One comment on Slashdot intruiged me though- if the trigger mechanism for the parachute was a single-axis accelerometer, and something odd happened on re-entry (came in at the wrong vector or some other random variable), the accelerometer may have never felt the required force to deploy the parachute. In that case, would it have been possible to implement some kind of ground control override? Send up an RF signal to force the parachute to deploy?

I know it wasn't a "critical to human existance" type mission, but it was a lot of time and energy put forth from many talented people, and the results could have (or may still) help us determine our place in the galaxy, and our star's relationship with other stars. Personally, I find that pretty cool, and hope there enough survived the crash to make it all worth while.

[dlavery]

Just a few quick data points:

- all we know so far is that the neither the drogue or main parachutes deployed, and it appears that the deployment mortar never fired to push the parachutes out of the spacecraft. We do not yet know why the mortar did not fire.

- the parachutes were designed to slow the spacecraft to a descent rate of approximately 9mph. The spacecraft design was capable of protecting the sample cannister if the spacecraft impacted the surface at this speed. However, to minimize the potential for damage, the primary recovery plan was to perform an "aerial snatch" during the descent in which the parachutes would be snagged by a hook suspended from a helicopter, and then slowly lowered to the ground.
- during the descent, as the spacecraft comes into camera range it is precessing noticably. This motion degrades into a flat spin by the time of impact.

- the spacecraft hit the ground at about 190mph, and broke open on impact. A large impact crater is evident at the site. The exterior backshell is has been severely fractured, and the interior of the spacecraft is exposed.

- it is unknown at this time if the sample cannister has been breached. If the samples have been exposed to the atmosphere they will be highly contaminated. In that event, it is likely that all sceince wll be lost.

More to come...

-dave

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Just a few quick data points:

- all we know so far is that the neither the drogue or main parachutes deployed, and it appears that the deployment mortar never fired to push the parachutes out of the spacecraft. We do not yet know why the mortar did not fire.

- the parachutes were designed to slow the spacecraft to a descent rate of approximately 9mph. The spacecraft design was capable of protecting the sample cannister if the spacecraft impacted the surface at this speed. However, to minimize the potential for damage, the primary recovery plan was to perform an "aerial snatch" during the descent in which the parachutes would be snagged by a hook suspended from a helicopter, and then slowly lowered to the ground.
- during the descent, as the spacecraft comes into camera range it is precessing noticably. This motion degrades into a flat spin by the time of impact.

- the spacecraft hit the ground at about 190mph, and broke open on impact. A large impact crater is evident at the site. The exterior backshell is has been severely fractured, and the interior of the spacecraft is exposed.

- it is unknown at this time if the sample cannister has been breached. If the samples have been exposed to the atmosphere they will be highly contaminated. In that event, it is likely that all sceince wll be lost.

More to come...

-dave

My teacher would love to hear this dave, thanks again for the inside scoop.

[ahecht]

Truely a shame. The AIAA chapter here at WPI was watching the whole thing live, and were shocked by how non-plussed the commentators and mission control people were during the whole thing. We didn't even realize anything had gone wrong until they showed the show of it imbedded in the ground.

NBC News had the best line about the mission: they said the probe should've been named Icarus, after the man who flew close to the sun and then crashed to earth.

By the way, am I the only one who thinks that this picture would be great for the UFO conspiracy nuts?

Click for larger image

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by ahecht

Truely a shame. The AIAA chapter here at WPI was watching the whole thing live, and were shocked by how non-plussed the commentators and mission control people were during the whole thing. We didn't even realize anything had gone wrong until they showed the show of it imbedded in the ground.
NBC News had the best line about the mission: they said the probe should've been named Icarus, after the man who flew close to the sun and then crashed to earth.

By the way, am I the only one who thinks that this picture would be great for the UFO conspiracy nuts?

Click for larger image

No you are not!

This is yet another screw up by NASA. What I don't understand is how in the universe would NASA be able to plant 2 rovers on Mars, a planet we know just a little about, and NOT be able to land safely a small capsule with solar data on it on this very Earth? It's the planet we live on. It just seems obsurd.

[Max Lobovsky]

Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007

No you are not!

This is yet another screw up by NASA. What I don't understand is how in the universe would NASA be able to plant 2 rovers on Mars, a planet we know just a little about, and NOT be able to land safely a small capsule with solar data on it on this very Earth? It's the planet we live on. It just seems obsurd.

To give them credit (sort of), they managed to mess up quite a few times on Mars, also...

Does anyone have any idea how large that capsule is (maybe the diameter of the heat shield)? Because it seems pretty amazing for a capsule to be that well intact if its anything more than a foot or two in diamater...

[Joe Matt]

I saw an image of it with a guy next to it. Can't find it now. It's about 5 feet in diameter.

[Katie Reynolds]

Originally Posted by JosephM

I saw an image of it with a guy next to it. Can't find it now. It's about 5 feet in diameter.

Click on image for CNN's coverage

^^ There's a pretty cool animation of what the helicopters would have done, had the parachutes deployed. Check it out.

[ahecht]

From another forum:

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Max Lobovsky

they managed to mess up quite a few times on Mars

C'mon people. Where's the support? Why not say "I hope there's something salvageable so the science isn't completely lost" or "It's ashame what happened after so much time and effort put into it" rather than "Geez, NASA, another screwup" or "it's not the first time they've screwed up"

Let's be a a little more supportive of this great program we call NASA.

When was the last time you launched ANYTHING into space? Yeah, that's right, NEVER! So don't promote their failures when you haven't even attempted success.

[Joshua May]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

When was the last time you launched ANYTHING into space? Yeah, that's right, NEVER! So don't promote their failures when you haven't even attempted success.

Well actually, no, wait a minute... that only made it about three feet.

But I agree, stuff happens, being in FIRST everyone should know plenty about that. But just look at all of the successes that NASA has had as well, and I don't think anything, even not this, would be a real failure, this is just another lesson to learn from.

[Katie Reynolds]

David Lindstrom, Genesis program scientist, said NASA was "optimistic" about retrieving scientific data from the mission.

"We think we can remove most of the impurities from the surface and science will be possible," he said. "The solar wind particles are implanted within the collectors so the absolute surface is not all that critical. We are hopeful of getting science out of this."

... ...

Click for the rest of the story:

[Mike]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

When was the last time you launched ANYTHING into space? Yeah, that's right, NEVER! So don't promote their failures when you haven't even attempted success.

Give me billions of dollars in Government Funding and then maybe I can try

[Gdeaver]

I understand that both the main and back up accelerometers where placed upside down. If so then it was a human systems failure. Similar thing constantly happen on our team.
Gary Deaver